Jonoary 30, 1868. 1 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



103 



of a breed is to open the door to mongi-cls of every description, 

 canaing vexation to the real amateur, and often bringing a good 

 breed into disrepute. — A Sometime Dweller in Fiunce. 



I HOPE I may be allowed to enter a strong protest against 

 fonr-toed Houdans. The pure Houdan breed is as clearly five- 

 toed as the Dorking, and where the four toes come out it is 

 due to attempts at crossing with Drahmas and Cochins in hopes 

 of getting more size. This I think has been a great mistake' 

 and the French poultry farmers themselves now find it so. 



The Hondan is not naturally a large fowl ; it is an excellent 

 layer, and puts on a great deal of ilesh on ivery small bones ; 

 and the attempts at crossing, by wliich four-toed Houdans are 

 produced result in many cases in bad sitters, and in fowls with 

 large bones and less flesh, though a certain apparent size may 

 be gained. — Sangke Azul. 



I WAS very glad to see Mr. Schroder's remarks in your last 

 number relative to the fifth toe in Houdans. It is not yet too 

 late to get rid of this ugly and troublesome deformity, and I 

 believe most breeders would be well pleased to do so, if they 

 were not deterred b}' the fear of disqualiiication at exhibitions. 



In my experience of this valuable breed I have found that a 

 large proportion of the chickens, especially the pullets, come 

 with either four toes or with the fifth toe very imperfectly 

 developed, though the birds possess all the other qualifications 

 of the breed in just as great perfection as their five-toed sisters ; 

 and it is mortifying to be obliged to consign promising young 

 birds to the cook merely because they are without a member 

 which can be of no conceivable use to those that have it. 



I believe the fifth toe in Houdans is derived from a Dorking 

 cross in some previous generation, thrown in for the sake of 

 improving the size. Many of the imported birds are without 

 it ; and I hope yet to see the day when the fifth toe will be 

 considered, as I believe it is, a mark not of purity but of cross- 

 breeding. — Eblaxa. 



ARE PIGEON ROUP AND CANKER INFECTIOUS? 

 CROSSING WITH MEAI.Y BIRDS, 



I CANNOT but think, with all due deference to so great an 

 authority, that 3Ir. Huie is mistaken when he says that " not 

 one disease to which they (Pigeons) are liable, is even infec- 

 tious," and that " roup, the most likely of all to be infectious, 

 is not so." 



I have been a breeder of Pouters for some years, and during 

 that time the only two serious diseases that my birds have ever 

 been troubled with have been cancer in the mouth and roup, 

 but as far as my experience goes, both of these complaints are 

 most decidedly infectious, the former especially so, and I 

 think most fanciers will bear me out in this. 



Mr. Huie also strongly condemns a cross between a Yellow 

 and a Mealy Pouter. I possess a few good Yellows, and one of 

 the best birds of this colour that I bred last year was obtained 

 by crossing a Yellow cock with a mealy-barred hen, not a sem- 

 blance of a bar appearing in the young bird. I also obtained 

 some good-coloured Blacks from a Black and a Mealy, the latter 

 being bred from a Red and aBlack. — Vf.R.BoBZjCraiwleyHall, 

 7iear Kettering. 



[I am glad Mr. Rose gives me the opportunity of proving 

 my assertions in regard to the diseases of Pigeons, which time 

 would not admit of in my previous communication to the 

 Journal. 



During my experience in breeding domestic Pigeons (over 

 thirty years), canker, or cancer, in the mouth has been rare 

 with me. Some years ago I had a young Trumpeter, and just 

 before its being able to leave the nest, I discovered, from the 

 bird's hard breathing, that something was wrong ; looking into 

 the throat I found it almost closed by a large lump like a fungus, 

 caused by this disease. The bird not being of much value, 

 with the broad end of a pencil I pressed the lump downwards 

 into the crop. Profuse bleeding followed for a few minutes, 

 and the bird was well, as it flew about for years after without 

 any return of the disease. Neither of the parents of this bird 

 was ever affected. The year before last I had a pair of Mottled 

 Trumpeters, a different strain from the former; the hen had a 

 bad mouth from this disease, yet her mate was never affected 

 by it. They reared four fine birds of their own, and being 

 pressed at the time for feeders, I placed under them a pair of 

 my young Pouters, destroying their own eggs just hatching. 

 This hen and her mate reared the Pouters, and they became 



fine, large, healthy birds, all unaffected by the dieoase. The 

 Trumpeter hen is still alive, and now well. 



Roup is a very troublesome disease, still I do not coneidor 

 it infectious. At present I have a pair of Red Pouters, the 

 cock ten years old and the hen three years, also a pair of Yellow 

 Pouters about nine years old ; botli pairs were matched all last 

 year, and, strange to say, both hens have been ill with roup 

 since the moulting time in IStifJ. Sometimes for three or 

 four weeks, or longer, at a time they were quite well, then the 

 disease would return bad as over, and I have sometimes found 

 in the morning lumps of yellow mucus adhering to the par- 

 tition boards close to where they had been sitting during the 

 night. The mates of these two hens are, and have been all 

 along, in perfect health and fine show. Both hens laid during 

 the season, and notwithstanding all the " billing and cooing " 

 that went on, their mates never were once affected in the 

 slightest degree, nor even one other bird in my whole collection, 

 from thirty to forty pairs living in the same house. 



I hope that Mr. Rose and our other brethren in the " fancy" 

 will consider that I have proved to a demonstration my former 

 assertions; were it necessary I could furnish many other 

 instances. 



It is from observations and upon experiments such as these 

 that I found my assertions ; and if our friends would only come 

 forward and candidly give us their experience, although in a 

 few lines at a time, we should rapidly advance in our pastime, 

 not on theories or nightmare remembrances, but on a pathway 

 paved with facts "true as steel." 



My remarks on breeding the various colours in Pouters were 

 as a matter of course only general. What we want is detail, 

 but that we cannot obtain, unless writers understand the sub- 

 jects on which they write. In breeding for yellow we want a 

 rich, solid, deep orange colour, not a light, or pale, or streaked 

 colour, with or without light or slight touches showing where 

 the bar should be if it were required. Five minutes' considera- 

 tion will bring us to the conclusion that no bird showing a 

 bar should be introduced, or any bird of such blood. A rich- 

 coloured Bed and a Yellow should be matched to breed from for 

 Yellows, the Yellow being the younger bird. The mealy colour 

 of itself is too light, leaving the bar out of the question. I 

 have seen good Yellows bred in the manner Mr. Rose names, 

 but they are seldom up to the mark ; besides they are few and 

 far between, and what is most provoking, the birds that are 

 worst in colour, or showing a slight or defined bar, are as a 

 general rule the most handsome. 



When I talk of breeding Yellow Pouters, or Pouters of any 

 colour, I point to a strain that will not fail to breed true, 

 marking excepted, in colour. I am not surprised at the colour 

 of the birds Mr. Rose has bred, and in corroboration of this I 

 may mention thet I produced a most elegant Blue-pied, and in 

 the' following nest a Chequer, from the largest and, I believe, 

 most handsome pair of Black-pied Pouters that were ever seen ; 

 the male bird was known by Scotch fanciers as the " Black 

 Prince." These facts show bow colours have been mixed, but 

 vre have been working for size and shape ; these being attained, 

 we shall by-and-by arrive at the desired colour. 



Mr. Rose omits telling us what reason he has for thinking 

 the diseases in question infectious. — J. Huie.] 



RAILWAY CHARGES. 

 The excessive railway charges that poultry exhibitors have 

 to submit to are a great annoyance and injustice. The most 

 curious circumstance is that I invariably am charged more — 

 in fact, nearly double carriage for my birds on their return 

 joui-ney from any exhibition than I pay when I dispatch them 

 thither. Can any one explain this ? or will any one kindly say 

 it he is troubled with the same grievance? For instance, the 

 other day I sent some birds to a show, and pre-paid 2s. 9d. ; 

 on their return journey I paid for them 4s. 2rf. Cannot we 

 oblige the companies to charge equally for birds both to and 

 fro ? — Pakieidge Cochin. 



PHILGPERISTERON SOCIETY. 



This Society held its twenty-first annual Show on Tuesday the 

 14th inst. at the Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, Liincoln's 

 Inn. It was a soarce of regret that on the day of its coming of age, 

 owing to a mistake on the part of tlie manager of the Freemasons' 

 Tavern, the Society had to be content with such a poor substitute for 

 their usual rendezvous — the Grand Hall ; as many of the birds, al- 

 though shown in the mahogany pens of the Society, were seen to a dis- 



